Legalizing Drugs: The Zero Percent Solution

Back in 2000, I worked for an interesting fellow named Bill. He was mostly a standup guy – straitlaced, religious without being a fanatic, educated by years of honest work, and a great debater. He was also a self-taught constitutional scholar, who carried a pocket-sized copy of the constitution with him everywhere he went. It was worn and dog-eared, and heavily marked up with yellow highlights and multicolor underlines. It was his conversation starter: if he wanted to talk to you about guns, he'd read you a portion of the second amendment. Religion: first amendment. And so on. It was a peculiar hook, but it seemed to work – at least on me. We had dozens of great conversations, and sometimes even broke new ground for each other. I was always challenged to look with new eyes at topics that were at least important to society of the day, if not the grist of seminal American debates. It was during one of these conversations that I first heard talk about legalizing illicit drugs. I have to admit: at the time, I hadn't given the topic much thought. I wasn't a drug user, I didn't know any drug users, and hadn't ever considered legalizing something that was already illegal. So I choked. I didn't know enough to talk beyond the standard fallback platitudes you'd expect when opening a dangerous topic. But Bill was always prepared. He pulled a thick folder out of his desk, and said, "Read through this, then we'll talk." I did just that. The folder was a veritable gold mine of information: the background of the Harrison and Controlled Substance Acts, the role of racism in the criminalization of some drugs, the impact of drugs on culture, the legal costs of prosecuting drug crime, and the ubiquitous War on Drugs that started under Richard Nixon, and gained renewed life under the Reagans. It was a good primer for me, and it armed me to go back and express my first opinion on the topic. It was no surprise that he took a pro-legalization stance – there was a barely perceptible "this is why anti-drug laws are unconstitutional" slant in the reading materials he proffered, so I expected that. But what did surprise me was how incomplete his analysis really was. Yes, he'd gathered lots of data, and clearly had read everything in the folder, so he came out like a shot on why drugs should be legalized. But when I challenged him, most of his arguments fell flat. There was some modicum of logic behind his position, but – like what happens when you ask a devoutly religious person where Mrs. Cain came from – he was quickly and utterly confounded by my counterpoints, and visibly struggling to cling to his ideas. Despite that, there was no clear winner in the debate. We moved on with an agreement to disagree, then never discussed it again. I didn't think much about it after that.

Fast-forward to 2009...

The Legalization Argument...Again

What happens when a bunch of lifelong marijuana advocates have access to the internet, and a web savvy guy takes up the mantle of President? No, this is not the beginning of a killer FrankSpot joke – which, I assure you, would have split your sides. It's a legitimate question. And here's the answer: more than a thousand stoners reach out to the Prez, and suggest legalizing pot as a way to jump start the flagging economy and pump up the federal tax coffers.

"What? Are you kidding me? Wow. How...stupid."

Yes, I was shocked. (And a little less open minded than I would have liked, which is another example of me not living up to the ideals I espouse here, and another opportunity to redouble my efforts on that front...) Here we have a world leader poised to talk directly to the electorate – someone genuinely engaged with, and interested in, the common man's issues – and the sum of some people's interaction is, "Legalize it, maaaan."

Like I said: Wow! Way to represent the needs of your neighbors and children. Way to fix the country. Way to go, boys.

Unfortunately, this newest legalization suggestion didn't fade away at the end of that day's news cycle. Instead, it pushed the war on drugs back into the spotlight, and sparked a new national debate. And although I'm a big advocate of debate, this one rankled me instantly. Not because of the "clever" stoners who touted legal pot as a way to fix the ailing economy, but because it brought out all those folks who pedal the legalization of all illicit drugs as a national cure-all. "Make 'em legal," they shout, "and you can tax 'em, regulate them, put drug dealers out of business, secure the borders, end crime, empty the prisons!" ...and give every Jack and Jill a free pass to shoot up and let the world go to hell around them. Again: wow. Talk about a bad idea. To quote a source I can no longer properly cite: "This is the worst idea in a world of bad ideas..." Why? Read on.

Legalization as Miracle Cure (Or: Doesn't Anyone Actually Think Anything Through in This Country?)

So here we are, looking down at the game board of life, death, law, and social problems in America. And one of the biggest barriers on the board is this thing called illegal drugs. It's a monolith. It drives crime and murder, fills prison, and destroys families and communities. And no matter what you score in the pop-a-matic bubble (props to the makers of the game Trouble!), you won't be able to move enough spaces forward to cross it in your lifetime. That makes it even too big to ignore. Its ominous, seemingly insurmountable size makes it an issue that has to be addressed – definitively! On this, I think we can all agree. The problem starts when we start brainstorming the vaccine. Legalization, more and more, seems to be the "go to" move. And it's just a bad one. Don't believe me? You're not alone. That's why I'm writing. I want legalization advocates to see the Biblical "Where did Mrs. Cain come from?" problem with their plan. I want to loosen their grip on a solution that won't drive the results they're expecting. They can still choose to argue their point and push for their legalization solution, but it won't be because I didn't point out some of the giant flaws in the plan. Let's start with some of the common arguments:

• We're losing the war on drugs. Drug trade is at an all time high, and drug crime continues seemingly unabated.
• Our prisons are overcrowded, and arresting drug users just adds to the problem.
• The war on drugs is expensive, and that money could be better spent elsewhere.
• More people are killed every year by...

I can't argue with any of these statements. So I'm still in lock step with the legalization crowd. We both understand the problem, and agree that something needs to be done. But when we start talking about how to fix the problem, the legalization crowd goes down paths that I just can't follow. Let's look closer:

We're losing the war on drugs...
Yup. True. There are so many drugs, so many users, and so much corruption that underpins the whole thing. It's a tough nut to crack. But does that mean we should stop trying to crack it? I know some consider analogy to be a weak way to debate an idea, but let's use one anyway. It's hard to housebreak your dog. So, why not just allow him to poop anywhere? Silly, right? Yet, that logic is at the heart of many legalization arguments. You hear similar suggestions where illegal immigration is concerned. It's hard to stop, so let's just stop trying. Here's my question: when did we become a people who don't want to do something just because it's too hard? I know some of you will argue that legalizing is doing something. To some degree, you're right – learning to be helpless, then comforting yourself by adding some cursory rules around that thing you can't control is doing something – but is it the best solution? Is it any solution at all? Isn't it like trying to make a murder a little cheerier and bearable for the victims, instead of trying to stop murder outright? In effect, that's what you're doing here. Not fixing the problems caused by the drugs, but putting a thick salve on the wounds and hoping for the best. Put a pin in this one...I'm coming back to it a few paragraphs...

Our prisons are overcrowded...
Again, true. But the fault always lies with the criminal. Not society. Not the law. We have a very simple system. It's a system that my toddler already understands: if you break the rules, you get punished. Period. It's irrelevant if you don't like the rules. You have to follow them because that's what it is to live in a world of laws. No matter who you are, you should be able to grok this idea. You should be able to put blame for crime on the criminals themselves. They chose to do something they were told was wrong. How is that anyone's problem but theirs? Now, here's a twist: I don't think it's inherently bad to decriminalize something. In fact, I'd say it's a natural part of our legal evolution. Societies outgrow laws, and those laws have be dissolved. However, there's at least one rigorous test that has to be passed before we confer a legal status on something illicit: the decriminalization has to benefit society, not generate a new hazard. Otherwise, all we've done is given one group of scofflaws a free pass. Sure, the prison populations dwindles for a bit, but at what long-term cost?

The war on drugs is expensive...
Yup. It is. But is that really a reason not to fight it? Some expensive things are more than worth the money. Ask me if this is one of them...

More people are killed every year by...
This is a common and completely indefensible, invalid argument. Let's use the perspective of the stoners who wrote to the President last month.

"Alcohol kills more people than pot...so since alcohol is legal, pot should be too."

<Buzz!> Wrong answer! This argument is acutely flawed for several reasons. Here's the big one: pointing out that something legal is more dangerous than the illegal thing you're doing, is actually an argument for criminalizing that other thing, not legalizing your thing. If the goal of law is to protect and improve society, then you should act to prohibit things that hurt society. That's why murder is illegal. And rape. And theft. Let's play with more analogies, and you can decide if any of these make sense:

• Alcohol kills more people every year than burglary. So, since alcohol is legal, burglary should be too.
• Alcohol kills more people every year than assault rifles. So assault rifles should be legal...
• Alcohol kills more people than rape, so...
  

It's absurd to look at it that way, isn't it? So go all arguments of that nature when our goal is to protect life, limb, happiness, and freedom. A correct argument goes more like this (and forgoes any comparison):

• Alcohol kills people, so it should be illegal.

Or:

• Pot doesn't kill anyone, so it should be legal.

I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I'd give you points for forming a valid argument. It doesn't rely on the status of some other thing, but on the inherent merits of your subject. If you want to win an important argument, that's a good rule of thumb to use. Then we could talk about the validity of your point. (Now, just to be clear, I DO know the difference between pot and harder drugs. But in the context of this debate, it's not a valid delineation. If you're high, you've already been compromised – in judgment, attentiveness, coordination, and the ability to follow rules. The degree to which you've been compromised is irrelevant. You know that jerk you see on the freeway every day? The one who's always four seconds from rear-ending someone because he's texting, juggling his Tim Hortons' and morning butt, and took a little too much Benadryl before he left the house? What happens if we also let him blaze up 5 minutes before he slots himself into traffic beside you? I'm guessing that'll end badly more often than not. So, for the sake of this discussion, I'm lumping pot in with every other illicit substance.)

That said, let's get on to my point – why the legalization idea is unworkable.

Legalization Debunked (Or: You Don't Always Get What You Pay For)

So, let's legalize illegal drugs. Why not, right? The benefits are obvious:

• We can control them; the FDA will make sure they're safe, and of good quality, which will decrease accidental deaths.
• We can tax them. With the huge interest in drugs, that will be a small fortune, one that we can use for health insurance for kids, and to fix our roads, and create new jobs.
• No more user arrests. You can't be arrested for buying and using something legal.
• No more illegal drug dealers – drugs will be legal, so they won’t have anything to sell.

Good arguments, right? Nope. Not even close. They come from the same body of "research" and level of critical thought as the points made by my former boss. On the surface, they may seem to make sense – especially if you've lost a loved one to some form of drug crime or punishment, or are a lifetime democrat – but there's no substance; no depth; no tensile strength. Each argument is insufficient to address the complexities of a legalization scheme. They are dismissive of key facts about human nature, the general order of things, and the business of illegal drugs. They just don't make any real sense when you shine the light of critical thought upon them. They fail on almost every level:

Regulation Can't Work
Regulation is an interesting and tricky thing. Let's for a moment forget the complexities in preparing a drug for public consumption, and skip right to the very nature of a regulation. Regulations are rules – rules that, by default, govern who can sell an item, and for how much, and in what quantity, and on what day, in what venue, and to which consumers. These rules are the problem with regulation. Every rule you create is a rule to be broken, which, in turn is an opportunity for crime. Let's say a legal heroin fix at your local drugstore is sold like this:

• 5 cc
• $50
• Only to people over 21
• No more than once a day

In the legalization model, everyone says, "Hey, cool," and goes to the drugstore to buy a fix. But, what about the 20 year old who wants 50cc, twice a day? Oops, here comes illegal heroin again, which demonstrates that:

Crime is Fluid
The legalization model supposes that there will be no way for illicit drug makers, importers, and dealers (read: criminals) to make a living. I guess the legalization advocates just assume that all the folks on the supply side of the issue will pack up shop and go work at Wal-Mart. Well, as I just pointed out, EVERY regulation creates an opportunity for crime. And criminals know their shit. They're criminals because they like to be – they like the life it affords them. They're not a group of enterprising rogues who sell drugs as a form of social protest. Don't believe me? Look at DVDs. DVDs are legal, and cheap. Yet, there's a multimillion-dollar illicit DVD trade out there. Criminals realized that people don't want to wait for the official release, or don’t want to pay the studio price. We created a demand, and the criminals rushed to meet it. It would be the same here. That flexibility is actually at the heart of the failing war on drugs. So, yes, there would be a whole host of mainstream consumers who would buy FDA-approved crack. But there's an even bigger population who wouldn't. They're the folks who want higher doses, or more frequent fixes, or are too young to buy drugs legally, or who don’t want their local pharmacist or doctor to know they're stoning up every day. And if I know this, the criminals do too. It’s their livelihood. They can find the illegal outgrowths of every regulation you place. Unless the legalization movement says free drugs of any kind to anyone, in any dosage, and is willing to dispense them to kindergartners, then the problem hasn't shrunk even a little bit. And let's add this: what about all the new drugs? You know, the ones in this model that haven't yet been approved by the FDA, or that are too dangerous to ever be approved. Do you think anyone will want those? Do you think the criminals won't be out there making those? Of course they will. The Feds have stepped on their action, and they're not going down without a fight. At that point, they could cook up a drug with a 50% guarantee of death, and people would still buy it...

Addiction is Still Addiction
Here's one that's underrepresented in every legalization discussion: addicts are still addicts. It doesn't matter where they get their drugs. They have a problem that's driven by a combination of the drug itself, and their own personality/body chemistry. It's not reasonable to expect that addiction will no longer be a problem just because the drugs are legal. I suppose the FDA could try to make all drugs less addictive, but oops, then we've created a new crime loophole – an illicit variant of every legal drug, that has whopping more addictiveness. And I'm not even going to dive into the problem of everyone around you being stoned at any given moment of the day. That makes me positively YEARN for my next 747 ride. (What's that you say? Pilots would never take legal drugs before a flight. Of course they would. You made it legal to do so. And people who take drugs tend to suffer from bad judgment – not necessarily before taking them, but certainly afterward. Maybe as part of this plan, we can test everyone for drug levels every morning before work. That wouldn't have any negative impact on our economy or society, would it? And before you talk about punishment for those who break the rules, if I hear you right, you're talking about a form of criminalizing drug use again...interesting catch 22, huh?).

Legal Drugs Aren't Free (Or: Where Does the Money Come From?)
Here's another one that the legalization crowd ignores: drugs aren't free. This is an important point, since the plan includes taxes on drug sales. What happens to the folks who can't afford to buy them, legal or not? Do you suppose they're just going to forgo their daily fixes? My guess is that they'll do what they do now: lie, cheat, and steal. Drugs are a powerful draw, and heavy drug users aren't deterred by empty wallets. The fact is that it won't matter if they're stealing to pay the pharmacist or the Columbian on the street corner. People are still being victimized to support a drug habit.

Flash Forward: The (Crime Free?) World of Tomorrow

So: now we've legalized drugs. In the ideal model, we've changed the face of the most common drug user. Instead of a gaunt trembling junkie cowering in a dark alley, it's the honorable Reverend Godfearing and his wife, Prudence, snorting coke with Mr. and Mrs. WASP from the country club. And they're not doing anyone any harm, so all is good, right? But let's look out the window:

Oops! Look at that. The problem is still there. The criminals didn't go straight after all – they're smiling across the border as drug mules deliver their quadruple-strength cocaine (now with fresh pine scent!) to the US border guards who want to buy bigger sailboats than they can afford on public servant salaries. And the kids who aren't old enough to buy and use all those newly legal drugs aren't saving up to get high on their 21st birthday. They're under the bleachers getting high today on the ULTRA-POT that was grown in the house across the street – the one with the garbage-bag covered windows, and daily foot traffic that's on par with that of an urban shopping mall. Welcome to the safe, clean, crime-free world of legalized drugs.

Okay, maybe that last paragraph was a little more Harlan Ellison than it should have been. But I wrote it so to drive home my main point. You can't win the war on drugs through legalization and capitulation. You can't regulate the problem away, and there's no level of concession to the destructive nature of drugs that has any positive impact. It's a zero-percent solution, even before you invoke the more obvious unmitigated problems in the plan, like its impact on employment and poverty, quality of goods and services, or public health and the cost of medical insurance. In the end, the whole notion of legalization leads nowhere good. Crime rebounds, prison populations stay high, and our society pays an even higher price than it pays today. As the national debate continues, I hope the fundamental truths I've described here start to ring in everyone's ears. I hope that the smartest of us, especially those who hadn't thought deeply about the subject before the conversation went public, will realize the folly of legalization as a salve, and lead us down a better path.

Then, hopefully, this will never come up again.

Thanks for reading. Peace.